My PC Won't Work Correctly

[check_bin_krap]

I don't know if I understand you correctly. Do you have problems with both CD and HD?

 

 

 

Anyway, the first thing to make sure of when installing devices is Master/slave settings if you are using IDE controllers. On each controller you need one master and one slave. The bootable HD should be master. Check the device's manual or manufacturors WEB site to see how you put a device to master or slave. If the devices are put to Cable select, both devices need to be put to it. And the position on the cable determines which is master/slave. 0 would be master/1 slave.

 

 

 

Does the BIOS report the right size of the HD? It could be that it gets it wrong. In some cases you have to prepare the HD with SW/load driver or whatever to correct this problem. Follow HD HW instructions (WEB site or in manual). This problems occurs on older BIOS versions.

 

 

 

What does FDISK from DOS see? Does it see the HD? Can you format the disk there? Boot up on a DOS startup disk to check that. If FDISK manages this, you have some obscure Windows problem.

[adikgede]

You can start by following Start>Settings>Control Panel>System and looking at the device manager. Is the second HD and CD recognised there? If they are and there is an exclamation point by them then you probably have a driver problem. HD and CDs are pretty uniform so if they do exist in the device manager you can disable or delete them and reboot the computer to see if Windows will sort out the problem. It usually does with basic devices like these. Just be certain that you don't remove the primary drive from the device manager.

 

 

 

If you do start changing your BIOS/CMOS settings keep track of what you are doing. It is easy to render a disk unreadable by carelessy switching between NORMAL, AUTO, and LBA. AUTO should work in most cases if you do want to change it.

 

 

 

In any event you should probably back up any important data on the computer and do a clean install of Windows. Windows 9X and ME suffer from an accumaulation of plaque after awhile (I guess its the registry getting a mess) and the best way to fix it seems to be just reformatting the disks and reinstalling Windows.

 

 

 

As much memory as you can throw at it and a clean install will solve a lot of unexplainable problems for anyone using 9x/ME before they happen.

[Hamokhamok]

Thanks for those replies. They give me loads to think about. I will let you know how it all turns out. I have actually got all to be recognised in start up. I have set the BIOS to AUTO which works. However, when I go to look at the devices in File Manager they are not listed at all.

 

I also formnatted the hard drive I want to load windows 98 on but when I try the win98 cd won't allow setup to work. All very complicated. Suffice to say I now have a 6Gb HD formatted and what now appears - no way of loading Windows 98 today. I will seek professional help on Monday in work. In respect of the other HD's I have tried them in another PC and strangly enough the same happens i.e. BIOS sees them but File Manager doesn't . As I said Thanks for the suggestions. I will keep trying - its a little bit of fun (not as good as sex) but I'm sure it has to be very little thats wrong.

[Guest]

Just a hunch. This HD might needs to be allocated with a drive letter like a partition. In case you need a program: power quest partition magic 7.0 will do.